Nobody in the war room has ever been invited onto a sofa by anyone, and we are processing it as a professional slight.
LONDON, England (The London Prat) – Gethin has ruled that the war room may watch television as long as we call it research, and then put a tick against the word research on the whiteboard. It was my idea to watch the Prime Minister on Gogglebox. It was his idea to bring the crisps.
Seven o’clock: the sofa doctrine
The facts first, because the facts were funnier than anything I could add. Andy Burnham became the first serving Prime Minister to appear on Channel 4’s Gogglebox, in a celebrity edition, sitting on a sofa with a pint beside his friend Steve Rotheram, the Liverpool City Region Mayor. The Irish News reported that he joked about the Budget the following week, answered a question about the royal household on Only Connect, and had views on how to spot a traitor on The Celebrity Traitors.
We watched it on a laptop propped on the photocopier, which has not copied anything since the spring but makes an excellent plinth. Anjali wanted to know whether this counted as a campaign event. Wilf wanted to know whether the Prime Minister had been told in advance which sofa. I said that in my experience no politician ever sits down without knowing exactly where the camera is, and that the real test of any sofa is whether it can be said to have been chosen by accident.
The Victorians would have understood this perfectly. A great deal of the political life in Trollope’s Phineas Finn takes place in drawing rooms, clubs and country houses, where the real business is conducted over dinner and the division list is merely the receipt. The sofa is the modern drawing room. It simply has a lens in it.
Half past seven: the criticism
The report also noted that Kemi Badenoch had questioned whether the Prime Minister had time for the show, and had set it beside the government’s advice to stockpile food and water. Mr Burnham’s reply, as reported, was that he would make “no apology” for trying to lead with a bit of lightness. I should say that I admire both sentences. The first is what an opposition leader is for. The second is what a Prime Minister is for. Between them they have covered the entire possible range of opinion about a man holding a pint.
Gethin, who is our pollster and therefore a person who has views about everything that has not yet been measured, said that sofa appearances always poll better in the room than outside it. I asked how he knew. He said he had a feeling. I wrote FEELING on the whiteboard and drew a small circle round it, which is how we mark a finding that has not yet been tested.
Interval: the washing-up
At the interval I went down to the yard behind the dry cleaner to take the bins out, and met our neighbour Mr Pettigrew, who does something with drones on the second floor and has never explained it. He asked what we were watching. I said the Prime Minister on a sofa. He said, “Does he pay for the pint?” I said I did not know. He said that was the only question that mattered, and went back upstairs.
On the way up I thought of a farm.fm headline I had seen earlier, about Marxists promising every farmer a share of one tractor. It struck me as a fair summary of a two-person sofa. Everybody is promised a share of the thing, nobody is promised the whole of it, and there is always somebody at the end with the arm.
Nine o’clock: the documentary
Having done the sofa, we moved to the serious part of the evening, the preview coverage of ITV’s Tonight film, Burnham: Inside the First 100 Days. ITV’s write-up of the interview had the Prime Minister admitting the Budget was not what he wanted, that the room for manoeuvre was smaller than he had hoped, and that he had tried to be radical within the limits. He called it a “breathing space” Budget. He said he would publish a ten year plan by the end of the year, and when asked about an early election he said, “No election in 2027.”
I need to be even-handed about this, so I will point out that every Prime Minister rules out an early election in the same tone a man uses when he tells you he has not been near the biscuits. It is not a lie. It is a position. The Conservatives and Reform both set net migration targets at the last general election, as the same report notes, and Mr Burnham has declined to set one, arguing that numbers should follow the gaps in the economy. I have no idea who is right. I do know that I would like the argument to be conducted in a room that is not a sofa.
Gethin said that the phrase “breathing space” tested very well in his head. Anjali said that she had heard it before, usually from a landlord.
Eleven o’clock: the verdict
I cleaned my glasses on a scarf and went through the evening. A Prime Minister appeared on a sofa, explained a Budget, ruled out an election, and the commentary divided, as it always does, into those who found it refreshing and those who found it frivolous. This is what we in the trade call a day.
The thing about Cockney rhyming slang is that it has no word for a Prime Minister with a pint, which is a gap, since the language has always been good at naming a man in a pub. A pig’s ear is a beer, as Cockney rhyming slang reminds us, and the entire evening felt like a pig’s ear in the other sense. But I said nothing, because the crisps were finished and the photocopier had begun to overheat.
Wilf asked if I would write it up for our corner of the internet devoted to the day’s absurdities. I said there was nothing to add, and that the facts were already doing the work. More of my daily notes at The London Prat will follow when I have recovered. The sofa, I am told, is still warm.
SOURCE: https://bohiney.com/